I am interested in carrying a glass water bottle on backpacking trips, because I like good tasting, healthy water.

Last time, I took a VOSS glass water bottle, which is really heavy. The plus side, is that I was able to put the bottle leaning on a rock in the fire pit, and heat up some soup (without the plastic lid). It didn't crack, and it was fun to watch the soup circulate in the bottle. The soup on the side closer to the fire moved up the bottle. I guess you could do the same with stainless steel.

Unless someone can convince me that their foldable water bottle doesn't add anything bad to their water (even if they say BPA free, bound to release other yuckies). Is there a plastic capable of not polluting your water?
What I mean by foldable water bottle:
http://www.bellahoo.com/catalog/1500-1999/1674-Foldable-Water-Bottle_1200.jpg

Or that a vintage leather water bottle is the way to go (how are they coated on the inside?). http://www.ampro.co.nz/products/lake/PK1000.jpg

If not that, I would like to know the lightest weight water bottle, that still has a protective sleeve. I just sent an email to Lifefactory to ask how much their 22oz bottle weighs when empty.

I started this thinking glass was the way to go, but I'm open to a good conversation. For example, a stainless steel water bottle doubles as something to cook soup in. Can you then go without taking a pot? Wouldn't a stainless salad bowl be a better multi-purpose pot/pan?

Should I move this topic out of the lightweight zone, since lightweight is a secondary consideration? I do want to find the lightest solution that fits the other considerations.

As a moderator, I took the initiative and moved this from the Lightweight Zone to Health and Safety, because that seemed to be the main concern driving the thread topic.

Don't get me wrong. I would like to hear from the lightweight folks too. Knowledge and experience are hard to beat.

Without addressing the potential exposure route of water stored briefly in various plastic containers, I'll suggest a Sigg aluminum bottle. Very light and coated with an inert inner liner.

Sigg coating technology

MSR no longer makes titanium bottles, which were the bee's knees.

Cheers,

No way I would use glass. Most metal bottles have a plastic coating, Vargo BOT is Titanium and uncoated but expensive and I've read the lids are almost impossible to open at elevation. What about an old army aluminum canteen?

A one quart canning jar with the lid weighs 406 grams or 0.93 pounds. Many people carry a comfort item with them to address their biggest fears, and this weight could fall in that category.

A quart should be good enough for many hikes, but I'd carry spare water in a lightweight plastic bottle in case the glass one breaks.

A pint canning jar with the lid weighs 196 grams. If you are planning to cook in one, I'd suggest carrying a spare lid with a few little holes punched in it. I'd also suggest trying this outside at home and wearing safety glasses while trying it. I think you will find it takes too long to cook in glass, even if it does work.

If it's an overnight trip, consider carrying a good bit of water as fresh fruit and raw vegetables. Fruit and vegetables are about 70% water, and contain good energy, too. Be sure to pack out any part you don't eat. Eat these in the first part of the hike so you don't have to carry them too far.

Don't be afraid to experiment, as that's how people learn new things. Most experiments won't work, but that's important information, too. Then when you get old and gray, you can smile at the youngsters and tell them not to be afraid to experiment. Learning is a big part of the fun.

Rick points out that water is generally only stored in a container for a short time which minimizes the leaching of any chemicals, so there is that to consider. Time, Heat, and Light, are things to minimize when storing water and none of those are difficult to manage.

Now, what I now is use a collapsible bottle that is made by Enfamil, which is very similar to what you're linking to. These will accept very nicely a activated charcoal filter made by Britta .

This combination is very light, very packable, and offers some protection against at least some of the contaminants that may be in the water.

I can't convince myself that the bottle or even the filter doesn't add anything bad, but I am convinced it does remove things that I can taste and I know are bad.

LifeFactory got back to me: The 22oz glass bottle with coating weighs ~1.15 lb. I've had some bladders that add a plastic taste to water even after a couple hours. However, the point you guys have brought up, about leaching taking time, gives me some bravery to try out lighter options.

I've been looking for something to carry my water in at Civil War reenactments, where of course a plastic bottle is very anachronistic (or "farby," as we reenactors call it). The choice is between glass (with a cork stopper) or a gourd. Gourds are lighter! Yes, the soldiers used metal canteens, but a military canteen is not something a civilian, especially a lady, would carry. MYO gourd canteen.

No, I haven't tried this yet….

I expected you guys all to caring bladders from a cow for water. Or you could do as the Indians and do a water jug with sap as a water proofer.

Would not a "lady" have had someone who carried her water on her behalf?

I have an stainless steel, I think... could be aluminum? bottle that weighs 5 oz. Someone threw it out... looks new.

Rockchucker22, your gourd looks awesome, and I may try making one in the future.

The leather bota's, commercial, seem to be lined with latex, and would be kind of hard to clean.

I'm partial to titanium myself, but that's me. If you like glass containers I'll suggest looking for pyrex labware. Pyrex ends to be a more durable glass. Use your favorite internet search engine to look for "laboratory glassware with glass stopper" or similar to find a container in which only glass comes in contact with the water.

Borosilicate glass is what lab glass is and it is stronger, more heat resistant but also heavier.

This seems a non-issue. The "nasties" you get from breathing smoke from a campfire are probably more harmful than anything from a plastic bottle if it is emptied daily. I would be more worried about microorganism in the water - Giardia, parasites, etc.

I have a Nalgene water bottle at work in the fridge. It always has water in it and stays in the fridge. I guess I'm not worried about yucky stuff....

I have one question about carrying a glass bottle: what happens if you fall and break it? I don't think it be much fun carrying broken glasses in my pack.

Only if she were wealthy, such as from the Southern planter class. Back then, a "lady" was not necessarily upper class or wealthy, just a respectable woman. Of course few women wanted to be known as "unladylike."

On the occasions when I'm a cook or laundress attached to a military unit, I can of course carry some military gear. The group I joined, though, is more into civilian activities.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics-leach-hormone-like-chemicals
"But Bittner says consumers should be encouraged that at least some plastic products had no estrogen-like activity. He says that shows it is possible to make these products."
Ugh...
"And a few observed that Bittner has a financial interest in the testing lab and in a company involved in making plastic products that don't release estrogenic chemicals."

This is why I use an activated charcoal filter. They clean water via chemical adsorption. There are caveats. The longer the water is exposed to the charcoal the more contaminants will be removed, and they don't kill or filter bacteria and viruses.

You can always boil water to kill bacteria and viruses so that's not hard to deal with if you're worried about it. There are places I hike where I don't worry about it.

It's worth pointing out that you need water. You can't let weight or inconvenience or fear of contamination keep you from staying hydrated. That can be as bad or worse than trace amounts of chemicals or bugs.

I'd carry stainless steel before I'd carry glass though. I wouldn't want to deal with broken glass.

If the entire concern is over leeching from the container into the water, then what you need is an inert surface that won't leech. Stainless steel is just as inert as glass for all practical purposes and it can be made lighter than glass because it is so much stronger that it can have much thinner walls, with the added benefit of not shattering if there is an impact.

If you are very sensitive to changes in how water tastes, stainless steel still ought to pass muster, but my taste buds are not yours, so you might be able to detect some metallic taste that I cannot.

My own thought on the subject is that avoiding ingesting or inhaling all petrochemicals is utterly impossible in the world we live in. If you live in a city, you are exposed all day long, every moment. The added risk from a plastic water bottle on a backpack is not going to change the odds of unwanted health effects enough to matter. There are much broader and more meaningful changes you can adopt instead.

I think the whole scare about water bottles is overblown. Billions of gallons of store bought water are drunk from bottles every year without an epidemic of whatever it is that they supposedly are doing to you, at least as far as I know. Of course, it could be a conspiracy to keep us complacent. Remember when fluoride was a Communist plot? Probably before your time, but it was what a lot of people believed and some still do.

If glass is what one wants, I believe some thermoses are glass lined, but with either a stainless teel or plastic screw top lid. This would be less fragile than a plain glass bottle although I would still suggest one avoid dropping it. These can shatter if one puts ice in them though. Don't ask me how I know this.

I tend to agree, I think the whole thing is overblown. But tell my wife, as sone as the BPA scare happened she tossed all my nalgenes' ! I wasn't happy but she insisted.

Overblown or not it's still better to err on the side of caution.

I don't trust corporations at all. Corporations will kill you for money. Some even specialize in it (Lockheed, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrop).

Others just because it's inconvenient or costly to change, like GM ignition switches, gas tanks in GM pickup trucks or Ford's Pinto. Dupont's Teflon (which is basically made from fluoride). Asbestos.

One can take worrying about this too far, but ignoring known risks can be risky and so can the risks you don't know about.

I used to do water quality testing. I know we had certain non-glass sample bottles that were designed to be non-reactive. There also are specialized plastic bags that do not "bleed" plastic into samples (if you are also worried about carrying backpack food in a bag). If you have a water quality laboratory near you, visit them and see if they will sell you some bottles. You can find suppliers on the internet, but many will not sell a small quantity to individuals.

I feel the risk of a plastic water bottle is worth the trade-off to have a lighter pack when backpacking. I think if you buy high quality (like Platypus), not some off-brand knock off, the risk is a bit smaller.

Finding the enfamil collapsible bottles was somewhat comforting. I used a few Dollar Store bottles like those before that but there was no comfort there. I've got another I found at WalMart by Outdoor Products that's a bit better than those Dollar Store bottles. It's a 1 liter collapsible and it accepts the Britta filters too.

All of the Dollar Store bottles I bought started leaking after a few days of backpacking. I hate tossing stuff after just a few uses.

Wandering_daisy wrote: "There also are specialized plastic bags that do not "bleed" plastic into samples (if you are also worried about carrying backpack food in a bag)."

I would love a perfectly safe camelback type bladder, and a real cooking pot (instead of trying to use a water bottle as a pot), but even if the modern bladders don't impart a taste into the water (or so I've read, on amazon), I still don't trust that they wouldn't leach odorless/tasteless bad stuff. How do I know if one of the water bladder manufacturers uses this special plastic?

Nalgene makes a line of plastic bottles for laboratories called "Scientific Nalgene". They come in various sizes - even square and rectangular bottles and are designed to minimize plastic "bleed" and are non-reactive all sorts of chemicals. These come in an incredible variety that you will not find at an outdoor store. Just google "Scientific Nalgene".

Glass is used if you are sampling trace levels of volatile organics. Trace levels are not something that I would be too worried about.

Have you reviewed the available information on the Camelbak and Platypus websites? They're forthcoming about the materials used in the products.

Cheers,

http://www.thermoscientific.com/en/about-us/general-landing-page/nalgene-bottle-selector-guide.html
I am not exactly sure which of the certifications to select:
Sterile
Low Particulate
ADC Free
RNase/DNase Free
Non-cytotoxic
Non-pyrogenic
Low metals
Air shipment
Standard Quality Certificate

Halfway guessing, halfway doing quick lookups, I selected: Low Particulate, RNase/DNase free, and Non-cytotoxic, which leads to a result of: "No bottles are matching the current selection"

Anyone know how the "low dosage" compares to average human intake of plastic baddies, in this article: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0055387

Cookware and health:
http://www.naturallifemagazine.com/0112/pots.htm
This article is from 2012. Searches I found that are more recent, seem like marketing towards the use of titanium. (please see previous post on page 3: my search for plastic hydration options)

Having read this thread, I have a question- is all the water consumed coming from home? Filtration and the source would seem to be far more a factor than the container. Doesn't PH and mineral content alter taste? Or is all water boiled first? My water on trips rarely is in the container for long lengths of time. The dry, desert trips I've taken, I looked for lightweight , packable, containers with the least concern for taste as the water weight was already adding 20 lbs. The rate that various container materials release their components into the water may be worth looking into. If the water is kept cool, I would think the rate of release would be reduced. I must admit that a long cool drink out of an old stainless Sierra cup was refreshing. Or maybe because it had finally gone silent after it had clanged and banged its way to the source.... I've looked at the Kleen Kanteen in the 64 oz. size, which is not terribly heavy and has a stainless cap liner so no plastic contacts your water.

I didn't bring up filtration, as I have a Katadyn Hiker Pro. Anyway, I just ordered a platypus 1 liter bladder-bottle on sale at REI outlet. I'm going to die with the rest of you.

Bravely done! ;-)

FWIW I use taste-odor as a proxy for potential contamination through leeching. If a container imparts, for example, a plasticy odor with time, I ditch it for something else. The early Camelbaks, for example, gave a lovely waterbed fragrance with enough contact time, while the current ones don't. Also, sometimes drink hoses do this while the container itself does not. This is why I prefer silicone hoses (which your Hiker has) for filters and reservoirs. The bit of water in the drink hose sits in the sun and can get quite warm, so I try to drain it between uses. (I don't think of it as a health issue so much as a "yuck" issue.)

Cheers,

I am not going to discuss whether certain plastics leach chemicals or not. That is for others to decide. But here is something to help...hopefully.

If it is a collapsible "bag", then most likely, the inner layer (they are usually multilayered) that touches the water is either Polyethylene or Polypropylene. It can be something else, but those two are the easiest to heat seal together.

Almost all aluminum water bottles have a plastic liner. Does it leach....that is for you to determine.

Most stainless bottles are NOT lined with plastic. Which means you will still have to do research into whether the stainless reacts and leaves stuff.

Titanium bottles aren't lined....if you can find one. This would be the lightest weight, most expensive, non-plastic option.

Of course, glass is probably the most inert. Canning jars are probably your best option here.

My advice for a non-plastic container is to use stainless. It is lighter, doesn't break, and you can put it in the fire. I would still need to bring at least a metal pot to eat out of. You couldn't use a plastic bowl, because that would defeat the whole exercise. Glass would be my second choice. Glass has problems, but they can be mitigated against. In the end, it is up to you to weigh the risks/benefits. Another thing to think about is how often are you drinking while camping/backpacking, compared to when at home. If you drink from a glass container 100% at home, but then for 5 nights out of the year switch to plastic....how much will that effect you?

Oh yeah, leather canteens are generally lined with wax, at least the ones I have seen.

Depending on the trip, I will take plastic or stainless, or both. Wax coated leather sounds cool, but look at this one that is coated with latex: http://www.backcountrygear.com/leather-bota-bag.html#.U2FIE6fZv6p
I have no idea if latex is neutral. Wax? I guess it would depend on the wax. Wax from honeybees is probably ok. Petroleum based wax is probably not.

While I did get the platypus softbottle (actually, I neglected to see it was only a half liter... sorry if I led you on a wild goose chase), I also got two wide mouth stainless steel water bottles (one stanley, one gaiam that's painted on the outside). I found a 13" long bamboo spoon. I ordered some wire on ebay for less than $2, which I will use to make a handle to pick up the stainless steel water bottles from the fire (saw that in another post). What cooking do you think I would still need a pot for?

Those bota bags aren't coated in latex. It is a latex bag, that has a decorative leather outside. It is basically a big rubber balloon in a leather pouch. All I know about latex is that some people are allergic to it.

The only leather canteens that I have seen that are true leather canteens were hand made, and the person said he soaked the inside in beeswax.

As for why another container to eat out of, I have a hard time eating out of a water bottle, even with a wide mouth. I guess it really depends on what food you have. I usually do freezer bag style while backpacking. But, that is putting hot water in a plastic bag...which would defeat this whole exercise. I also put food in my pot and let it soak there before eating. You could probably get away with one container...but try it before you commit for a week long trip. I guess a wooden bowl would also work, but I don't know if that would be lighter than a titanium bowl. I use the snow peak titanium bowl as my go to eating dish. It holds 20 fl oz and weighs 1.6 oz. A silicon bowl is around 4 oz.

I got a bamboo spoon that weighs a half an ounce. Maybe 0.6 ounce, but I don't have a very sensitive scale. It's 12 inches long.

Another idea: I think that activated carbon absorbs plastic toxins. I thought of using carbon inside the drinking tube of a hydration bladder. In my first attempt, I crushed the carbon, hoping to get it to fit better in the tube, but I couldn't get water to go through it. I think that bigger pieces would work better at allowing the water to flow. I put a piece of coffee filter on the drinking side, so I wouldn't suck up the carbon. I also would recommend putting another on the bag side.

The plus side of this, is that I drink more water if there is a drinking nozzle sitting on my shoulder. I used this (without carbon though) when I was a bicycle messenger over a dozen years ago. You can start off full of ice cubes, which keeps your back cool. I am thinking of using this for bicycle commuting and day hikes. The simplicity of a bottle may be better for backpacking.